Short Story, Page 1

Everything began on that early morning.

Just like every year, 15-years old Alexis and her parents spends the summer at their family beach house.

A silver Honda Civic pulls up in front of a white beach house. The back door opens to reveal Alexis, a black-haired teenage girl. Alexis steps out of the car with a large Speedo duffel bag slung over her shoulder and waits for her parents to make their way over to the trunk to get the rest of their luggage. After unloading everything, Alexis goes to her room and settles down. Her room has a clear view of the blue ocean and of the room of the house next door.

Her nice Saturday morning begins with waking up to some strange noises outside her window. She pulls the covers over her head in attempt to block out the noise. When that failed to solve her problem, she groggily drags herself over to the window.

“How noisy,” Alexis complains under her breath.

“Isn’t the sea beautiful?” A stranger’s voice reaches her ears. Alexis turns her head towards the house next door, only to find a boy her age leaning against the window pane and smiling pleasantly at her. Alexis observes him for a moment, taking in his dark brown hair, his hazel brown eyes, and his athlete built.

“Hi!” He extends his hand across the small gap between the two houses and shakes her hand.

“Wha…what was that noise?” Alexis questions him, shocked by his forwardness. He points to something below her and she looks down. The ground is littered with seashells, all shaped and colored differently and in a pile outside her window. She leans down to pick a heart shaped seashell from the collection.

“A gift for the new neighbor!” The strange boy says with a cheeky smile plastered on his face, “isn’t it pretty? I spend the whole night looking for them. You can wear that one as a necklace; it would look nice on you.”

Alexis tears her gaze from the seashells and glances at the boy, “how did you find these? Every time I look for seashells they are never in strange shapes like these?” She stares at the dolphin shaped seashell necklace hanging around his neck.

“You mean this one?” He tugs at the dolphin necklace, “this one’s custom made, I really like dolphins!” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he notices the longing look that she has on the necklace. With a smile, he reaches behind his neck, undid the clasp, and places it in Alexis’ hands, “for you, since you seem to like it so much.” Getting over the initial shock of how generous this boy is, Alexis remembers that she still doesn’t know his name,

“You still haven’t introduced yourself yet,” she prompts.

“Oh, my name’s Jason, you?”

“Alexis.”

“Nice you meet you, Alexis,” once again Jason reaches over to shake her hand.

It was this strange morning that Alexis met a boy named Jason.